In order to illustrate the relationships between social networks and the music category online, we have created some network maps that show the interconnectedness of music websites and the importance of social networks (Bebo and MySpace in particular) to the category. I presented these maps to some of our music clients last week and wanted to share them here for two reasons: to get reactions, thoughts, and comments and to spread the word.
This is the first time we’ve used network maps to illustrate relationships between websites in a category and we hope to do a lot more of this so feedback and suggestions are welcome. We also want to spread the word about these maps as network maps are a terrific way to illustrate connections between websites and categories. There are many network maps illustrating links between websites. The maps we created illustrate clickstream data to show the amount of traffic moving between websites.
In the week to 18th November 2006, 1 in 10 visits to Music websites came from websites in the Net Communities and Chat category (such as MySpace, Bebo and YouTube). The music category has become heavily intertwined with MySpace, and more recently with Bebo – at least in the UK.
The following image is a network map of the top Music websites plus YouTube, Bebo, MySpace and Google. The size of the nodes is based on the share of all UK internet visits and the width of the lines is based on the share of upstream visits between the websites. The more connected websites are closer to the centre of the diagram. (Click “View full size image” to view the image in a pop-up window).
View full size image

You can immediately see that Google is a centre of influence in the UK and an important source of traffic to all of the websites on the map. Google.co.uk is the largest domain in the UK, based on share of UK internet visits, and the size of the node representing Google UK dwarfs all other websites.
You can also see that Bebo and MySpace are clearly centres of influence in the music category. They have relatively large nodes and are connected to most of the music websites in this diagram. Also interesting is that Play.com and HMV.co.uk are both very well connected. Each receives visits from a wide array of websites. They are both among the top downstream music sites from Bebo and MySpace and also receive traffic from many lyrics websites, online music communities and band websites.
HMV.co.uk and Play.com are much more connected than other music retailers highlighted on the map including Tesco Entertainment, WHSmith.co.uk and Half.com. For example, HMV.co.uk is connected with all of the websites in the map (27 total) whilst Half.com is connected with 14 and WHSmith.co.uk is connected with 18. (When I say “connected” I mean receiving upstream visits from the website in October.)
The next two diagrams compare the downstream visits from MySpace and Bebo to websites in the Music, Shopping and Classifieds – Music and Shopping and Classifieds – Ticketing categories.
The first diagram shows the top 100 downstream music related websites from MySpace. The width of the line is based on the share of downstream visits from MySpace and the proximity to the centre also reflects the share of downstream visits. I have colour coded the nodes for easier interpretation.

• Light green: downloads
• Dark green = Retail websites
• Dark blue: news and reviews
• Pink: community
• Red: bands and artists
• Light blue: record labels
• Blue: lyrics
• Orange: ticketing
• Grey: Other

View full size MySpace image

View full size Bebo image

This entry is getting very long, so let me just point out a few items:

• Notice that MySpace has more sites in close to the centre – reflecting that it sends a more concentrated amount of traffic to a few sites whereas Bebo sends more of its traffic to a larger number of sites. I had a really tough time making the MySpace map readable because of the congestion of sites receiving a lot of downstream traffic from MySpace. (Note, I left out MySpace Music in this diagram).
• MySpace sends more of its own traffic to Music websites than does Bebo. Excluding MySpace Music, 2.04% of MySpace’s traffic in the week to 18th November 2006 went to the website’s plotted on the map (so to the top 100 music-related websites). This compares to 1.76% for Bebo.
• MySpace sent visits to nearly 500 music related websites that week, compared to just over 100 for Bebo. One likely reason for this is that Bebo doesn’t allow members to link to external sites so more of the traffic seems to move within Bebo. (Thanks to Antony Mayfield for pointing this out!)
• MySpace and Bebo send their traffic to a similar mix of music websites with similar levels of traffic going to Bands and Artists, News and Review, Retail, and Ticketing websites. The differences come in three areas. Among the top 100 downstream music related websites, 24% of MySpace traffic went to Community websites compared to 9% for Bebo. Is MySpace perhaps part of a larger music ecosystem? Again among the top 100 downstream music related websites, Bebo sent 18% of its traffic to download websites compared to 8% for MySpace and 17% to lyrics websites compared to 12% for MySpace

Again, I do look forward to comments and feedback. Also, thank you to my dear friend Matthew Hindman, member of the Hitwise Academic Advisory Board, for his help with these maps. Matt is doing some fascinating work mapping political blogs. More on that another day…